


The Patient Light, the Troubled Dark

by ReyloTrashCompactor (NextToSomething)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Grey Jedi, Knights of Ren - Freeform, Post TLJ
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 20:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13771869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NextToSomething/pseuds/ReyloTrashCompactor
Summary: Rey would always be here, and the Light as well. Waiting. They always waited on Ben Solo.





	The Patient Light, the Troubled Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NMC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NMC/gifts).



> Written for the _More than Love_ fic exchange, hosted by the _Reylo Fanfiction Anthology._ Thanks to **SouthSideStory** and **politicalmamaduck** for being wonderful betas/brainstormers/miracle workers as always.  <3

.

.

_**Today, oh-four-hundred hours.** _

“How long since you’ve seen him?” General Leia asked.

Rey pretended to consider this, but she didn’t have to. She knew to the second the last time she’d seen Ben Solo.

“Two standard weeks,” Rey answered. Two weeks, one day, eleven hours, and some change she’d have to check against a watch. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 minutes.

“Damn.”

Rey nodded. She knew too well what havoc could be wrought in two weeks time, especially at the hands of her husband.

.

.

_**Two weeks, one day, eight hours-and-some-change ago.** _

“You know we have to do this.”

Ben paced the Falcon’s cramped quarters. His hair was a wreck and there was a livid red bruise blooming over his clavicle, the wet sheen of Rey’s interrupted kiss still visible on his skin.

“I don’t,” he snapped.

Rey sighed. “Come back to bed, Ben. Let me give you yours.”

Ben snorted. “You can’t fuck me into agreeing with you, sweetheart. That’s not how this works.”

Rey sat up, letting the sheets pool at her waist. She smiled, slow and soft. Sent a pulse of warmth over him, tugged gently at his crackling energy with her own, more tranquil Force. “You never know. Come here and let me give it a go.”

“Stop it,” he spat, her attempt at humor ground to dust under foot.

“Ben,” Rey said. “I know this is difficult. But we have to bring them in. We have to try to bring them back.”

Ben whirled on her, sending a surge that flattened her to their bed. He climbed over her, bracketed her with his naked body on hands and knees. “You can’t save everyone, Rey. You can’t save them.”

“I saved you,” she said, not struggling against his hold on her. He’d let her go in a moment. He always did. “I brought you back when everyone else thought you were a lost cause.”

He snarled. “Are you going to sleep with every Knight of Ren, then?”

Rey looked away, blinking. Cruel. He had such cruelty right beneath his surface, just gasping for a sip of air.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his Force pressure lessened to nothing as he sat back on his heels. Rey was able to breathe deep, to sit up. “I--”

“Don’t,” Rey said. “You have to learn that there are consequences for being a bastard, Ben. You can’t wipe away every shitty thing you say with an apology.”

“I know,” he said, his voice calm and low. “I just hate when I’m unkind to you.”

“Then do it less,” she said, though a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

Ben kissed her, his mouth soft and warm on hers. He brushed her cheek with one hand, his other dipping to cup her right breast.

“I’m back in bed,” he murmured against her lips. “You said you wanted to give me something?”

Rey breathed a laugh. “Scoundrel.”

He pressed her into the mattress, giving her something instead. When she woke up some hours later, he was gone.

.

.

_**Yesterday.** _

Rey. Please report to the Rakata Base. It’s about Ben.

.

.

_**One year, three months, and six days ago.** _

“You can’t chase me forever, scavenger.”

Rey laughed. “Yes, I can. And don’t call me that.”

Ben smirked at her, knocking away the blue-tinted downward strike of her saberstaff. “Would you prefer something else?”

Rey kicked him away, her boot landing heavily at the center of his chest. “‘Rey’, for a start. ‘My conqueror’ if you’re feeling sentimental.”

Ben got his feet, then yanked her to him, hugging her so tight to his body that any strike she might make against him would injure her as well. 

“How about ‘wife’?” he asked, kissing over whatever answer she might have given.

.

.

_**Today, oh-nine-hundred-hours.** _

“Intelligence shows that he was observed on world with the Knights of Ren. Unmasked, but clearly...in charge. The hostages appeared unharmed.”

Leia snorted and the officer giving the report straightened. 

“They were subdued, of course,” the officer-- _Detta?_ \--corrected. “But the children were alive as of twenty-one-hundreds hours yesterday.”

Rey sighed, closing her eyes. Subdued could mean anything at the hands of those brutes.

“They’re still alive,” Rey said, laying a hand on Leia’s shoulder. “I feel them--faintly.”

“I do too,” Leia conceded. “But alive doesn’t mean unharmed. You know what they are capable of. What _he’s_ capable of.”

Rey nodded. “I do. But I also know the depths of his compassion.”

“As shallow as a puddle,” a brave pilot remarked, and Rey narrowed her eyes at him. He stiffened, then looked away. As much as Rey hated to admit it, Ben’s tactic of instilling just the barest dose of fear in those around them had proved useful. Rey wasn’t as unpredictable as her husband, but the Resistance also knew she never spoke in absolutes, that she pledged loyalty to no sides.

“Regardless. I’m going in after him. After them all.”

Leia looked her over, her lips in a tight line, but a smile in her eyes.

“May the Force be with you.”

.

.

_**Two years, ten months, and one day ago.** _

“I want you to join me,” Ben said, his voice steady. Placating. “We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.”

Rey felt the hard clench of tears in her throat, swallowed against them. “Don’t do this, Ben. Please don’t go this way--”

“No. No! You’re still holding on. Let go!”

So cruel, even when begging for Rey’s devotion.

“Join me. Please.”

.

.

_**Today, thirteen-hundred hours.** _

The temple was a skeleton, the stench of char still present on the breeze. The tumbled stone walls were streaked with black and Rey tried not to think of how this hallowed place had fallen to little more than a graveyard.

Rey found her way through the rubble to a passageway beneath the surface. Ben was down there, along with those wretched few who’d made it off-world alive all those years ago. The Knights of Ren, back where they first began.

Rey didn’t bother being quiet. Ben knew she was coming, knew she’d been getting closer for days. She turned the corner and as if blasted by a winter wind, she felt why Ben had resisted so heartily.

Dark. So much Dark. Rey staggered, finding it hard to breathe. She thought of the cave beneath Luke’s island, the mirror that promised her so much and gave her so little. She thought of how hard it had been to leave, and how she couldn’t find comfort with anyone but Ben afterward.

The Knights of Ren were susceptible souls, won over by a young Ben Solo, and still captive to his influence. These knights had done what Ben had never been able to do: they gave themselves fully to the Dark Side.

 

Rey took a moment to center herself. She knew that it wasn’t too late for Ben. It never would be. Not so long as she was living.

The passageway turned, then opened into a large, dank chamber. Eerie green flames flickered in sconces along the wall, and something--

Rey doubled over, clutching her head and trying not to be sick. The dizzying blackness that had been licking at the edges of her control flooded her. She heard voices and wails and lewd promises and dark predictions. She didn’t have to look up to know that the knights were closing in on her from all sides, that these hissing, grating voices colliding against one another inside her mind were theirs. Strong, they were all so strong. Rey had never needed to face down a small army of Force sensitives before, but it appeared that she would be soon. 

As suddenly as they overtook her, the knights vacated her mind. Rey fell to her knees and was neatly sick on the dusty stones. She coughed, wiping her mouth on the back of her arm. Then one stepped forward from the dark mass around her. She recognized the boots before her, and she scowled as she looked up.

“I missed you too, Ben.”

He held a hand out to her, helping her to her feet. 

“You should have known better than to come after me, sweetheart.”

.

.

_**One year, eleven months, three weeks, and two days ago.** _

The cell was small and the restraints holding her to the chair were cold. Rey didn’t bother struggling. She’d been here before and she knew how futile it was to try to escape unaided.

The door opened and Kylo Ren walked in. His face was placid, but he couldn’t hide the electric buzz of his energy when their eyes met. The corner of his mouth twitched, the closest she’d seen him come to a smile.

“I think you remember how this goes.”

“Let me go,” she said. “I won’t--”

“Give me anything. I know. I know.” He came close, tugging off his glove and running the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “I’ve missed you, Rey.”

She scowled. “You have a funny way of showing it.”

He didn’t stop touching her cheek when he said, “Tell me where the the Resistance is hiding.”

“Everywhere,” she trilled.

That flicker again, that almost smile.

“Tell me where their base is, Rey, and this won’t hurt a bit.”

Rey pounced, stabbing her way into his mind. She saw him crying while meditating, gripping his hair and willing the Light away from him.

She expected him to run again, to flee from the hard truth she’d exposed, but Kylo pressed his forehead to hers, his hand gently cupping her throat. Minds matched, giving instead of fighting her off. 

Rey had tried to diminish Kylo to something less than human--monster, creature, snake--but now he let her see every struggle, every flaw in the Dark. She found herself at the heart of it all, and she couldn’t--

_Ben._

Rey didn’t have to say it for him to hear, to know. 

He stepped away, breathless, just like her. 

“I thought you remembered how this always goes.”

.

.

_**Today, fourteen-hundred hours.** _

Chained, in a cell. Her husband had kept her in similar states so many times before that it almost didn’t occur to her to be frightened. Almost.

She flinched when he swept into the cell block, gripping the corroded bars keeping her in. Rey watched him, reached out to him with her hold on the Force, tried to see--

He unlocked her cell and crouched before her.

“How are you, sweetheart?”

Rey snorted. “I think you know. How are your knights?”

Ben’s face darkened. “They aren’t _my_ knights. Not anymore. You know that, Rey.”

“And yet here you are. Here _I_ am. I followed you here because you directed the Knights of Ren to apprehend a horde of Force sensitive children.”

“I didn’t make that call,” he said, and it was all she could do to keep from rolling her eyes.

“I don’t believe you.” 

Ben moved a piece of hair from face, carefully tucking it behind her ear. His touch was tender, familiar.

“Why not?” He pulled gently at her earlobe. “After everything we’ve been through, why wouldn’t you--”

He didn’t finish his thought; he didn’t have to. For all the strides they’d made together, Ben Solo had a long history of destruction. Whether he’d given the command or not, there were still terrified children in this tomb of a temple, their fear crackling along the Force. And the Knights of Ren--

“They’re still here, Ben. You haven’t eliminated them, you don’t have them in custody.”

His lower lip trembled. “I’ve been waiting for the right time--”

Rey shook her head and spoke over him. “No! No. Don’t lie to me.”

“I haven’t turned away from you,” Ben hissed. 

Not away from the light; away from _her_. Rey closed her eyes, breathing deep.

He touched her again, fingers brushing her cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just--can’t do this without you.”

Rey opened her eyes. She turned into his hand, kissed his palm.

“I’m here now,” she whispered. She would always be here, and the Light as well. Waiting. They always waited on Ben Solo.

Ben leaned forward and his knees jostled the chains tethering her to the floor. He kissed her, his touch so soft she could have dreamed it. Then he held her wrists, cupping the heavy manacles. His lips were still brushing hers when the crude cuffs fell to the floor.

“Then let’s finish what we started.”

.

.

_**Six months, two weeks, and three days from now.** _

The children learned quickly, but Rey had expected nothing less. The Force didn’t necessarily make you clever, but it did make you curious. Rey didn’t know much about teaching (and neither did Ben) but she found that simply giving a name to the energy inside them tended to be almost all they needed.

It was almost all she’d needed.

Almost.

They were rebuilding the temple, stone by stone. She gave Ben time, and when he disappeared, she always gave him a two day head start.

He came back, every time.

.

.

_**Tomorrow.** _

Rey and Ben watched as the Knights, unmasked and shackled, were loaded onto the Resistance shuttle. Rey reached for his hand, squeezing gently. 

“You did the right thing, Ben.”

He shook his head. “There’s no right or wrong choices, Rey. But I made this one with you so I’m pleased with it.” He squeezed her hand back, then said, “What if we stayed here?”

Rey turned back to the crumbled temple, her husband’s hand still in hers. He’d burned this all down, once upon a time. If he wanted to put it back together again, then she could help.

“What did you have in mind?”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please take a moment to let me know your thoughts!


End file.
